His Wife (A Contract Marriage Story) by Heer Mangtani

Chapter 73

GABRIEL

Several. Months. Ago.

I froze when I read the caller ID displayed on my ringing phone Lily Grant.

Her ID had been Lily with a st*pid emoji that she’d set all those years aback until six months ago, when I shifted it back to her full name the day I had broken up with her, the day I had told her I was marrying a girl my grandparents chose for me, the day she asked me to choose between her and my work and I chose my work, the day she cried in my arms and I told her maybe if she could wait for me for a few months, I would return to her. Just maybe,

me.

She hadn’t answered, just walked out on n

She never called after that.

I had forgotten that the six month contract marriage I had signed myself into was ending when Sophia’s grandfather passed away, and she was so consumed in her grief, and me, in her. She didn’t give me too much of her, but whatever she gave, I obsessively accepted, whether it was the ghost of a smile on her perfect lips, or her longing gaze in her very broken eyes. I held her, because I knew that her longing was for me, her smiles were for me, and anything in between, anything that Sophia gave me, was only for me.

Sophia was my kryptonite. She entered my life unwanted, and unknowingly crept closer until I gave her space. I was bewitched by her. Her mind, her body, her soul.

I was never a jealous man, but for her… Oh, for her, I would kill.

When she was with me, when I was with her, the rest of the world didn’t exist. And seeing Lily’s name on my phone was this reality check that the six months I had signed myself to Sophia for were ending, and there was a world outside that, a world that I fully intended on ignoring.

Lost in my very thoughts, I didn’t realise when the phone stopped ringing, and then rang again. I picked it up at lightning’s speed catching Sophia’s eyes on it from the other side of the bed and a pang of guilt hit me as I pressed the phone to my ear. “Hello?”

“Gabriel.” The voice on the other end wasn’t Lily’s at all. It was my grandfather’s. He had left just the day before because if 1 was here, someone had to be at the office to head meetings. There was only so much time that we could both take off together, so despite his best friend’s body barely being cold in his grave, he returned to the city, leaving me here for a few more days with Sophia. Before I could reply at all, he said, “It’s Alister. Can you hear me?”

My eyebrows knit in confusion. “Hm?”

“Good. Is Sophia with you?”

“Yes.” I half look back at the girl covering herself more in the blanket, her face suddenly void of any colour.

“Okay. I know I asked you to stay with your wife for a few days longer, but I need you to come here.”

reply, my voice

almost. “It’s an emergency. I need you to come here,

nuts he thought I was leaving Sophia alone. Why was he calling from Lily’s

he demands, and the world just follows any way. I learnt it from him. So for him to sound so… soft

was something. Perhaps Jim’s death had affected him more than he let

take her name in front of Sophia. My wife was grieving, she broke down so often, she barely slept or ate, and she’d been through so much. And through it all, her constant worry had been that I would leave her and go back to Lily. As if. I didn’t wanted

anything to Leila or Sophia,

“Okay,” Lagreed.

“You’re understanding, right, son

as annoyed as I sounded when

Sophia, who looked like she would cry any moment, her voice so meek

work, Freckles Work emergency. Same one that Alister left with.”

you have to

I wanted to do anything but leave her like this, and I hated that I had to go “I will double the security, make sure you’re safe every hour, okay? You won’t be alone for even a minute, not even here. I’ll see you at home tomorrow,

She replied, but there was no promise in her words, press her hand once again before pulling it away and the ghost of her touch

from Sophia’s hometown to the city. I went straight to work, heading

but now I didn’t have the

came fast. Good. He nonchalantly got up from

grey hair strand, a quality he worked years to cultivate into me after failing

when I ask,

something that doesn’t happen often. In the past week, the paranoia of my age catching up to me has bee playing on my mind obsessively. Losing your best friend to cancer does that to you” He pauses, clears his throat, and E wonder where

My eyebrows knit. “Lake?”

Just little blood in

have all day, really. I planned on getting back to Sophia and although I told her I would

You know stools

pag. “You have

me to get tested and turns out, it’s actually

My mouth opens and

decent time, and I don’t really need to go through

I begin,

first name basis most days, and that’s just fine. I don’t need you to call me a cute name

sorry.” My lack of words was strange even

even to me.